Our primary aim is to contribute to creating organisational excellence.  This begins with a well thought-out business strategy focusing on products, markets, customers, competitors, costs and people performance.  Many organisations do this but fail to “cascade” the overall strategy down into their business units and departments, where individuals in working teams create added value.  Constructing the bridge between the mission and strategy, on the one hand, and the hearts, minds and behaviour of individuals on the other is the responsibility of directors, skilled line managers and professional human resource advisers.

One of the themes of our action learning programmes is to facilitate this cascade down the hierarchy of the organisation so the strategic plans of the organisation influence managerial behaviour at all levels in the function and lead to measurable performance improvement.  Each manager on our programmes will be required to define their department’s strategy and annual operating plans.  They will then be helped to deliver changes in the way their sections operate and, at the same time, improve its financial performance.  This is a difficult process, which takes considerable skill and tenacity.  The action learning programmes will be designed to help this process to a successful conclusion and, while action is being taken to solve problems, participants will be taught how to improve their individual performance in both a technical and managerial sense.

Our aim is to create a “mind set” in all participants which encourages them to “continuously improve” the technical and managerial performance of the part of their organisation they control.  We encourage participants to recognise that there are two aspects to improved business performance, that is, better value creation and greater operational effectiveness and efficiency through process excellence in reducing waste and variability, creating more flexibility and reducing defects, lead and delivery times and other aspects of “lean” production.